The office of the Public Advice Centre (PAC), an initiative of the Lagos State Government, yesterday, invited Samuel Nwankwo, who recounted his ordeal at the Orile Police Station where he was illegally detained.
In the same police cell that he was held he saw school children still in their uniforms. Police arrested them and asked their parents to bail them with various sums of money. Saturday Vanguard published his story last week and the Office of Public Advice invited him. Saturday Vanguard followed him to the police.
The 40-year-old business man who deals on furniture and interior decoration at the popular Alaba International Market, Ojo, Lagos, had alleged that he was detained after some armed men on mufti accosted him few poles to his residence at Chief Natufe Street, Surulere, around 2am while he was going home after a night out. He alleged that his explanations to the gun-totting men who later identified themselves as policemen from Orile Division fell on deaf ears as they bundled him into their bus after giving him hot slaps.
According to him, as soon as they got to the police station, they demanded for money for his release but he refused to oblige them insisting that they must tell him his offence. He was late thrown into the cell where he said that he saw some school children in uniform. They were also being detained for days while their parents were made to look for money ranging from N10,000 to N20,0000 for their release.
How we came about the story The female leader of the team who sought strict anonymity told Crime Guard how they came about the story. “We have a public relation officer who always read the contents of all newspapers everyday and whenever we find a story in relation to human rights or child abuse, we pick up the story. What captivated us was the headline of the story in Saturday Vanguard.
It was the fact that under-aged school kids in uniforms were detained for days in a police cell while their parents were forced to look for money to bail them out. We concluded that it was a child abuse story and we picked interest and started looking for the victim, Mr. Sammuel.
PAC is a free legal system that is accessible to all, particularly people in dire need of legal advice and those who have been socially excluded or subjected to discrimination. What we normally do is to gather relevant evidence from our client, we do thorough investigations and then follow every legal means to get justice for them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment